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Main definitions of Sabellian in English

Sabellian1

noun

A member of a group of Oscan-speaking peoples of ancient Italy, including the Sabines and Samnites.

‘The Umbrians lived to the north of the Sabellians; they are said to have been the oldest people of Italy.’

‘For some time the land had been conquered by second-wave Indoeuropean populations such as a type of Sabellians called Bruttii.’

adjective

Relating to the Sabellians.

‘Using a variety of archaeological and literary sources, Leonardis examines the conflicts between the native Sabellian population of south Italy and the long-established and dominant Greek presence in Magna Graecia.’

‘Strictly speaking the Samnite tribes were Sabellian, and their language, Oscan, a Sabellian dialect.’

Origin

From Latin Sabellus + -ian.

Pronunciation

Sabellian

/səˈbɛlɪən/

Main definitions of Sabellian in English

Sabellian2

adjective

Relating to the teachings of Sabellius (fl. c.220 in North Africa), who developed a form of the modalist doctrine that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not truly distinct but merely aspects of one divine being.

‘We do not make a Sabellian error simply for the fact that Sabellian modalism is Unitarian, and not Trinitarian.’

‘So while the Sabellian doctrine may preserve a sense in which the nature of Christ can be adequately expressed in ordinary experience-describing language, it is difficult to see how the ‘incarnation strategist’ can resort to it.’

‘On the other hand, the Sabellian heresy loses a proper conception of distinction among the persons by speaking of God as singular, alone, solitary, and the like.’

‘In particular, he defended the vital biblical doctrine of the Trinity against the Arian Heresy which denied the deity of Christ, and later against the Sabellian Heresy which denied the distinctness of the three Persons.’

noun

A follower of the teachings of Sabellius.

‘Dionysius exemplifies the concern of the East to do greater justice to the distinction and reality of the Three within the One than did the Sabellians or even the other orthodox theologians of the West.’

‘He was presbyter of the church of Antioch, where he wrote a confession of faith in opposition to the Sabellians.’